RIO DE JANEIRO — They hear the word on commercials advertising the Paralympic Games. They see it on promotional material. It surfaces in encounters on the street, in the grocery store, and during interviews.

The word is inspiration, and it tends to exasperate, annoy and frustrate many of the athletes to whom it is so regularly applied.

Often, it produces the opposite of the intended effect, detracting from athletes’ accomplishments because it highlights their disabilities, branding them as different. Or it is laced with pity, implying astonishment that someone with an impairment has ventured into sports and thus cheapening the hours trained and the sacrifices made in pursuit of athletic glory.

“It’s not a word that we like to hear,” said the Team U.S.A. swimmer Jessica Long, who has won 23 medals across four Paralympics after having both her legs amputated below the knee at the age of 18 months. “I’m just doing what I do. I’ve been a bilateral amputee since birth and don’t know anything else. I’m not just going to stay in my house and hide.”

Many of Long’s peers share her perspective. Although interest in the Paralympics has increased, those within the para-athlete community are constantly fighting for exposure and equality — and fighting to raise awareness for an event that, they said, still gets mistaken for the Special Olympics.

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Dariusz Pender of Poland and Ludovic Lemoine of France in the men’s foil team semifinals of wheelchair fencing.CreditLianne Milton for The New York Times

They argue that they are fundamentally no different from the Olympians who played, raced and swam here last month, participating in a rigorous international competition that demands not only years of dedication but excellence. They are similar in another way, too: drawing coverage that often seizes on their back stories and the obstacles they have overcome to portray them as inspirational.

Those obstacles are a critical facet of Paralympians’ lives, and they understand as much. Many even embrace it. But those depictions can also make them uncomfortable.

“I know people can see me and think, Wow, she’s not shy, she can live her life and walk without any problems,” said Martina Caironi, an Italian sprinter and long jumper who lost a leg after a motorcycle accident in 2007. “And that’s good, but I think — I don’t go in the street and stop someone and say, ‘You have beautiful hair.’ To me, it’s quite the same.”

“The stupidity of human beings is to judge someone,” Boni said through an interpreter. “We’re athletes who are like the normal Olympians.”

When the subject of the word “inspiration” was broached during interviews with more than 20 athletes over the past two weeks, many — even if they did not agree that the term had taken on a fraught meaning — acknowledged that it was divisive. The word has been a point of contention during Team U.S.A. swimming meetings, either in news media training sessions or in casual conversations.

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Thanh Tung Vo of Vietnam in the 50-meter backstroke.CreditLianne Milton for The New York Times

The swimming team’s resident coach, Nathan Manley, suggested that the debate could derive from a fundamental lack of visibility. Citing a billboard displaying the British swimmer Ellie Simmonds in London, Manley said the Paralympics must scrap for attention in the United States, where at this time of year the N.F.L., college football and baseball’s pennant chase dominate the sports media landscape.

“There’s definitely this fight to be recognized as elite athletes because there’s not enough people who get it,” Manley said. “I think if that were appreciated more, and people appreciated them like they appreciate Michael Phelps and Maya DiRado, I think the inspiration part wouldn’t have that connotation to it.”

Rudy Garcia-Tolson, a Team U.S.A. swimmer, has competed in triathlons, run track at the London Paralympics and, for fun, climbed the Incline, a steep hiking trail outside Colorado Springs. His legs were amputated when he was 5, and he has been called inspirational, he said, for the last 20 years.

“As a kid, how do you process that?” said Garcia-Tolson, now 28. “That’s hard to wrap your head around.”

Garcia-Tolson said that he did not like himself in high school and hid his impairment by wearing pants. He has developed a more upbeat attitude about his missing limbs — “If I break a leg, I can just get a new one; I don’t need a cast” — but that does not mean he liked feeling patronized.

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Josefa Benitez Guzman of Spain, right, and her guide Beatriu Gomez Franquet in tandem para-cycling.CreditLianne Milton for The New York Times

“At our house, there was no pity,” Julie Kusku said. “It was, ‘I’m sorry you can’t see, but this is what you have and this is what we’re going to do.’ As a result, he’s very goal-oriented and self-sufficient.”

There is, to be sure, a large segment of Paralympians who disagree with the fraught nature of being described as inspirational, calling it an honor to be viewed as such — and an obligation to uphold.

Arnu Fourie, a sprinter from South Africa whose left leg was amputated below the knee, regards inspiration as essential to the Paralympic movement; it is, along with courage, determination and equality, considered a core value of the movement. He said that he hoped anyone who watches him run can be moved, in some way, to improve his or her life.

Jarryd Wallace of the United States, a unilateral amputee sprinter like Fourie, said fans connected with him.

“When someone says they’re inspired by me, I don’t hear, ‘Oh, my gosh, you’re this incredible person,’” Wallace said. “What I hear is, ‘You’re relatable.’ As Paralympic athletes, our adversity is visible. But every single human has dealt with adversity at some point.”

Like Wallace, who at age 20 lost his leg to compartment syndrome, the Canadian judoka Tony Walby acquired his impairment later in life. Even after presenting in his early 20s with cone dystrophy, a rare disorder that weakened his vision, Walby won a national championship in his weight class. He was declared legally blind in 2006.

“I feel that I’m impaired compared to an able-bodied,” Walby said, “but a lot of us that have a disability don’t view it as a disability.”

When people call Paralympians inspirational, they usually mean it as a compliment, and athletes recognize that. Eric Duda, a Team U.S.A. sitting volleyball player, said that he had always been polite and thanked them.

“I want to keep on being that for people,” Duda said. “But I’m just a regular athlete, and I want to be seen as an athlete first, not as a disabled athlete.”

Kory Puderbaugh, who plays wheelchair rugby for the United States, has adopted a different strategy for when he is called an inspiration. He will ask the person, sufficiently inspired, how he or she intends to inspire someone else.

“I think if people understood a little more about what it’s like to be in our position, they wouldn’t necessarily pick the word inspiration,” said Puderbaugh, a former wrestler who was born without his lower legs, part of his left arm and most of his right hand. “I think they’d probably say, ‘Wow.’ Or ‘Amazing.’”

Correction:

An article last Sunday about Paralympians’ mixed feelings about being called inspirational misstated, in some editions, the given name of a wheelchair rugby player for the United States. He is Kory Puderbaugh, not Kody.